Emily Barr - The Sleeper

‘What have you been doing, then?’ I ask, hating my patronising tone. Sam does not seem to notice it.

‘Oh, you know,’ he says. ‘Slept badly without you. Bed’s too big. No one to complain when I wrap myself in the duvet. It’s all no fun without you.’

‘Oh, I know,’ I tell him. ‘Same here. Me too.’

‘I’m rubbish on my own.’ He starts speaking quickly, his pent-up frustration released in a torrent. ‘I wish we weren’t doing this, Lara. It’s a mistake. I wish we’d laughed at it and called it a ridiculous idea. I wish we’d put ourselves, you and me, ahead of the money and everything else. I wish you were here, with me. This is all wrong.’

‘I know.’ I am not just saying this to make him feel better. Even though London has been exciting today, and being at work was stimulating and amazing, I suddenly wish I were in Falmouth, in our little house above the docks, with Sam. Sam makes me feel safe. He, and our home, suddenly look like a harbour in more ways than one. We could have struggled through without the money. ‘I’ll be back on Saturday,’ I remind him.

‘But it’s only Monday!’

‘It’s the end of Monday. And I’ll be back at the very start of Saturday. It’ll go quickly. You’ll get used to it. You can watch Man v. Food as much as you like! You can leave the loo seat up.’ I stop because I know how pitiful this sounds.

‘Yeah.’ Neither of us speaks for several seconds. ‘So,’ he starts at exactly the same time that I say: ‘And.’ We pause, awkwardly, each waiting for the other to continue.

‘Go on,’ Sam says. We both laugh, and the tension is gone.

‘I was just going to say, and at least you don’t have to live with Olivia. At least you’re in our home. Let’s go out for lunch on Saturday. To one of the nice pubs.’

‘Yes.’ He is suddenly decisive. I like it when that happens. ‘Yes, I’ll book a table at the Pandora, or the Ferryboat.’

These are the two pubs we love near Falmouth, both situated on the water. The Pandora Inn is on the banks of the Restronguet Creek; it is a thatched pub that burned down then miraculously reopened almost exactly as it had been to start with. It has a jetty which, on a sunny day, has sailing boats moored to it while the sailors call in for lunch, where children catch crabs and throw them into plastic buckets.

The Ferryboat, meanwhile, is situated on the Helford Estuary, in Frenchman’s Creek country, with a river beach, flat water, and boats moored for as far as you can see, while the eponymous ferryboat takes people back and forth across the water. Both of them are havens of tranquillity: they are places where nothing bad can happen. These are illusory, peaceful worlds, populated exclusively by people with money and security. Last time we went to the Ferryboat, I looked around at the families of upmarket beachgoers, at their healthy children expertly peeling prawns and drinking organic lemonade, and I tried to tell myself that everyone has sadnesses, that some of the adults would be hideously miserable in their marriages, that people would be having affairs and drinking too much and addicted to gambling, that lives would be on the verge of falling apart, families breaking up, businesses going bankrupt.

I convinced myself in the end, mainly by looking at Sam and me through the same eyes. To outsiders we must have looked perfect: a couple in their thirties having lunch together at a waterside pub. No one would have known, from the front we presented, that our third round of IVF had just failed, that we were trying to accept that we would never have a child of our own, that we were many thousands of pounds in debt, and that one of us was far more at peace with the idea of childlessness than the other.

Then, when I looked around, I caught the desperation at the corners of people’s eyes, their misery, the fake smiles they showed to one another. I saw people trying to text under the table, surreptitiously, but being foiled by the fact that there was no reception. It made me want to cry, and I wished I had kept the cynicism shut away.

‘That would be lovely,’ I say. ‘Whichever you like. That’s something to look forward to.’

‘How’s it been with Olivia?’ he asks, and I love the fact that he is the only person in the world, apart, perhaps, from Leon, who genuinely cares about this. ‘Is she giving you a hard time?’

I force a laugh. ‘Oh, nothing I can’t handle. We’ll get through it by avoiding each other. Yeah. The sisterly reconciliation I was hoping for. That’s not going to happen. She’s gone out tonight with a nice stringy man who was kind to me. It’s fine.’

‘Don’t take any of her crap, OK?’

‘I know.’

‘I love you, Lara. That’s all that matters, really, isn’t it? Everything else is detail.’

‘Yes. It is.’

I put the phone down. Then I have a shower, because I know that if I went to lounge in the bath I would use too much water, and Olivia would come home and find me there and complain. I tip the rest of the glass of wine down the sink, wash up carefully, then shut myself in my tiny room and sleep fitfully, jumping awake as soon as my sister’s key turns in the lock, listening to her crashing around the place. I smell the toast she makes and wish I could get up and join her.

She sobs, a sudden, ugly sound that she tries to stifle. I hear her ragged breathing. She is trying to keep it quiet. I check my clock: it is three in the morning. I don’t want to listen. I want to go back to sleep, but I am transfixed. Olivia is crying, harder and harder. It is wrenching, heartbreaking.

She would hate it if I went to her, so I don’t. I lie in bed, and I listen to her crying, and pretend to be asleep.

chapter five

October

Friday night at Paddington station is the only time I am genuinely and uncomplicatedly happy. I look forward to it all through the week, and when I step off the train at Truro I start looking forward to the journey back on Sunday. That truth makes me wince as I push through the crowds. It should not be this way, but it is.

The station is different on a Friday: the air is thick with expectation. People are going home from work and not coming back tomorrow; or they are heading away for the weekend, bags packed and ready for fun. I walk diagonally across the concourse, looking forward to seeing my friends.

Then I stop. For a second, I am convinced that someone is close behind me, so close they could reach out and touch me, wishing me harm. The malevolent presence is almost tangible: in fact, I think something did touch me, so gently it was barely there at all. I spin around, looking at the people in the crowd, scanning faces, but there is nothing. Nobody is even particularly close to me. Most people are walking in different directions, or standing still as I bustle past. Someone was there, though. Something was there.

It was not, I tell myself. Nobody was there. You are being ridiculous. This has happened several times. I feel something, eyes on me nearby, and I shiver, utterly convinced that someone is there and that something catastrophic is about to happen. I feel, at these moments, as if I am tightrope-walking like Philippe Petit between the towers, and wobbling.

I march straight to the first-class lounge, flash my ticket at a woman reading Metro , who smiles briefly at me, and go to join the rest of the waiting night-train passengers.

I am the first of my little gang, so I take a plastic bottle of fizzy water and a little packet of two biscuits, and sit down to wait. I am still shivering, despite the fact that nothing happened, and grab my phone to occupy myself.

I send Sam a text announcing my location, adding then deleting a rant about Olivia’s latest rudeness (dumping the broken microwave in my bedroom), and look at the news headlines which are appearing in cack-handed subtitles across the bottom of a muted TV showing the BBC news channel.